Contractors and council chiefs could face manslaughter charges over the Grenfell Tower inferno.

Senior prosecutors are already advising detectives investigating who was responsible, it emerged yesterday.

Everyone from local politicians who ignored warnings to contractors who fitted flammable cladding can expect to be questioned.

One MP demanded police seize crucial documents in raids as he said contractors were already deleting details of their work on the 24-storey block from websites.

Many residents who gathered outside the smoldering ruins of the building said the fire had been caused by a faulty fridge in one of the flats, but the fire service told MailOnline it could not confirm the reports at this stage

By mid morning, the plastic cladding could be seen charred and melted on the tower in west London

This aerial photo taken hours after the fire ripped through the tower block shows the devastating scale of the inferno

The plastic panels – that even the manufacturer warned were a deadly fire risk – are banned on high-rise buildings in Britain, ministers said yesterday. Yesterday Director of Public Prosecutions Alison Saunders confirmed there was a criminal investigation into the fire that killed at least 58 in the early hours of Wednesday.

Former DPP and Labour MP Sir Keir Starmer told BBC1’s Andrew Marr Show: ‘I spoke to the DPP yesterday and there are prosecutors already in, advising the police. There are wider regulatory offences, but I think manslaughter is the most serious and that’s the one that needs to be looked at first.’

London MP David Lammy, whose friend died in the fire, called for politicians, council chiefs and contractors to face justice. He said: ‘People are very angry. Trust is low. There are contractors who dealt with the tower and have taken off their websites that they worked on the tower.

The fire continued to burn all day. Left, the fire rages early on Wednesday morning, centre, firefighters battle the blaze and right, flames continue to rip through flats in the evening

A drone inspects the top floors of the wrecked tower block, where residents on the highest storeys are all feared dead after being trapped in their homes and then engulfed

Grenfell Tower, which was built in 1974, before the refurbishment (left) in 2011 and with the new cladding (right before the blaze)

‘The police have powers to go in and seize emails and documents. Is it going to happen in this case? Have they seized these computers? People have lost their homes and I have lost a friend. We believe it’s a crime.’

Harley Facades, which was paid £2.6million to supply and fit the cladding, said it had removed the Grenfell Tower page from its website ‘as a mark of respect’.

Minister for London Greg Hands and the Department for Communities and Local Government said fitting plastic cladding to a tall building was ‘not in accordance with UK building regulations’.

The Mail found builders had saved just £6,250 on the £10million job to refurbish Grenfell in 2015 by fitting cladding that has a plastic core.

MINISTERS 'DRAGGED FEET OVER REFORMS'

Ronnie King, who spent 41 years in the fire service and now advises MPs, said it took a tragedy for them to prioritise saving lives over saving money.

‘They seem to need a disaster to change regulations, rather than evidence and experience,’ said Mr King, who is honorary secretary of the all-party parliamentary fire safety and rescue group.

‘It was the same with the King’s Cross fire [in 1987] and the Bradford City football club fire [in 1985]. They always seem to need a significant loss of life before things are changed.’

He said that Gavin Barwell – Theresa May’s new chief of staff – had ‘no sense of urgency’ when, as housing minister, he was chased about reforms recommended after the last high-rise fire, at Lakanal House in south London. It was the same with Mr Barwell’s predecessor James Wharton, he added.

New rules to prevent cladding fires have supposedly been in the pipeline for 18 years. Following a blaze at a tower block in Ayrshire, which killed an elderly man, the Commons regional affairs committee concluded that external cladding systems ought to be ‘entirely non-combustible’.

However this has still not come into effect, with the rules stating ‘limited combustibility’ as the threshold.

Concerns grew again in July 2009, when six people died and 20 were injured in the Lakanal House fire. The inquest, which ended in 2013, heard the blaze spread within five minutes, burning through external panels attached to the building’s facade during a refurbishment.

Initially a fireproof metal cladding had been chosen by architects, but contractors switched it for Reynobond PE. Arconic, which makes Reynobond, has three versions of its product – and warns the PE option should not be fitted above 10m (32ft) to ‘avoid fire spreading extremely rapidly’. Grenfell is 67m (220ft).

The ‘fire retardant’ version, Reynobond FR costs only £2 more per square metre.

But even that should not be fitted above the reach of fire-engine ladders – around 30m (96ft).

Higher than that, only panels classed as ‘zero combustibility’ should be used, Arconic says.

Speaking after a church service near the tower block yesterday, London Mayor Sadiq Khan said the community was frustrated and angry in the wake of the blaze.

He said: ‘The tragedy we’re seeing is because of the consequences of mistakes and neglect from politicians, from the council and from the Government. If some tower blocks are death traps, we need to know which ones they are.’

He said some might need to be ‘pulled down as soon as possible’.

Father’s Day cards were among the tributes left close to the burnt-out tower yesterday.

Downing Street has announced £5,500 in emergency funds would today be given to each family whose home was destroyed, after Theresa May apologised for the sluggish response to the crisis.

The reaction to the blaze from council officials had been criticised by residents who met the PM – but Nick Paget-Brown, the leader of Kensington and Chelsea Council, yesterday refused to say if he would resign and insisted his staff had offered an ‘effective, co-ordinated’ response.

It was also reported some survivors had ‘freaked out’ after being offered accommodation in high-rise towers.

Harley Facades boss Ray Bailey has not responded to questions since an initial statement that said the firm was not aware of a link between the fire and the cladding. John Cowley, of Omnis Exteriors, which made the panels, yesterday denied Reynobond PE was banned in high-rise towers under building regulations.

Matthew Irving, whose fireproof panels had been initially chosen for Grenfell, said fire safety regulations were ‘not worth the paper they are written on’. He said: ‘It’s got to change, something must be done.’

Frustrations over the fatal Grenfell Tower fire boiled over as victims, residents and protesters took to the streets of central London demanding answers over the blaze